Commentary on transportation in Connecticut and the Northeast by JIM CAMERON, for 19 years a member of the CT Rail Commuter Council.
Jim is also the founder of a new advocacy effort: www.CommuterActionGroup.org
Disclaimer: his comments are only his own. All contents of this blog are (c) Cameron Communications Inc

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November 25, 2013

After
19 years, I
have resigned from the CT Commuter Rail Council.But I can promise you I am not quitting my
advocacy for my fellow commuters or the writing of this column. And I have an
even better idea of how commuters can be heard.

And
on visiting the capitol I was always struck by the fact that the corridors there
are filled with paid lobbyists, arm-twisting on behalf of truckers, for
building more highways or opposing tolls. Yet there was nobody there speaking
on behalf of commuters, except me.

The
thousands of daily riders of Metro-North in Connecticut are hardly a “special
interest group” nor can they afford a full-time lobbyist.But they are taxpayers and voters who
can move out of state when conditions make commuting unreliable or unsafe.

So
why did I resign from the Commuter Council now?Because the railroad and CDOT, which hires Metro-North to run our
trains, aren’t listening - let alone communicating
with customers.

Review
the old minutes and annual reports from Commuter Council over the past decade
and you’ll see that nothing has changed.The complaints are the same, but the lip-service from Metro-North and
CDOT is always a consistent “we’ll get back to you”, though they never do.Commuter complaints fall into some black hole
at MTA headquarters.

If
Metro-North were a private, for-profit business there would have been massive
changes in management after the debacles of deferred maintenance leading to last
May’s derailment / collision and the Con Ed meltdown.But Metro-North is a monopoly in a conspiracy
of silence and obfuscation with the CDOT. The little that is communicated to
riders lacks candor and transparency.

What
we need to do is give greater voice to commuters’ anger. We need a “Commuter Action Group” that can
directly connect commuters with lawmakers, the railroad and the CDOT, showing
them the true level of frustration of daily riders.That’s what I hope to build and if you’re
interested in helping, please e-mail me (Jim@MediaTrainer.TV) and add your Comments below.

We
deserve a world-class railroad and together we can still make it happen.

November 08, 2013

No,
it’s not your imagination. Service is
getting even worse on Metro-North. And there’s no sign of short-term
improvements.

This
has been a terrible year for Metro-North and its 120,000 daily riders in
Connecticut: the May derailment /
collision, the death of a track worker and the September “meltdown” because of
a failed Con Ed feeder. But the
repercussions of these problems still affect us, months later.

Trains
are late on a daily basis, even after the railroad adjusted the timetable in
August to reflect longer running times.
What used to be a 48 minute ride from Stamford to GCT is now scheduled
for 55 to 60 minutes. But in reality,
with delays, it takes more than an hour most days.

Why? Because of “slow orders”.

After
the May derailments, Metro-North brought in some high-tech rail scanning
equipment and checked out every inch of track in the system. Of immediate concern were the below-grade
tracks in the Bronx, long subject to flooding.

Concrete
ties installed between 1990 and ’96 needed to be replaced due to
deterioration. Ties and fencing were
also replaced in a job so large that, at times, three of the four tracks were
taken out of service.

Admittedly,
it’s hard to run the busiest commuter railroad in the US with 75% of your
tracks out of service, but the work was necessary and commuters were asked to
be patient. At last report, the
Bronx work was 80% completed.

So
that means train schedules will soon return to “normal”? Sorry, but no.

It
turns out that the Bronx is just one of the causes of the current delays,
something Metro-North didn’t tell us.

With
new timetables coming out on November 17th, some train runs may be
improved by a minute (yes, 60 seconds), at best. It seems that all those high-tech
track inspections since May turned up many spots where work is needed. And until that work can be completed, the
trains running over those tracks are operating under system-wide “slow orders”,
in effect cutting their speeds from 85 or 90 mph to an average of 60 mph. Don’t believe me? Fire up your smart phone’s GPS next ride and
see for yourself.

The
railroad still blames daily delays on the work in the Bronx and wet
leaves, but the truth is far worse.
At recent NTSB
hearings on the May derailment, Metro-North admitted they are far behind on
track maintenance, inspections and repairs in Connecticut but couldn’t explain
why. Until the tracks are fixed, trains
won’t be allowed to run at full speed.

One
thing they did acknowledge to investigators is that they don’t have the
experienced staff to do the needed welding and repair work, having lost so many
veteran workers in recent months to retirement.

The
slow orders make sense. Safety should
always come first. But why can’t
railroad executives be honest with us about why we are suffering with these
delays, how long they will last and what they are doing to minimize the
disruption to our daily commutes?
Remember: winter is coming,
adding another layer of misery and delays to our commutes.

Sadly,
my mantra from five years ago has proven correct: Things are going to get a lot worse on
Metro-North before they get better.

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Former NBC News director and anchor, now a professional communications consultant, JIM CAMERON leads workshops on media training, speech and presentations skills and preps clients for analyst briefings and legislative testimony.
Jim served for 19 years on the CT Metro-North Rail Commuter Council, is an elected member of the Darien Representative Town Meeting (RTM) and is Program Director of Darien TV79, his town's government TV station.